How do you question your cards?

[Farzon]

Recently I met someone who abandoned the Tarot after some years. She said, knowing about the future was not nough for her, she wanted to take control of her future.
Apart from the obvious philosophical implications ;-)...
this made me think. There are so many approaches to reading the cards, more deterministic ones and ones that give you more freedom.

SO instead of asking "what will this week be like" I switched to "what can I do to make this week a good one". I feel quite comfortable with this.

How do you go about it? Do you even think the way of questioning has any influence on the reading?

 

[nisaba]

Recently I met someone who abandoned the Tarot after some years. She said, knowing about the future was not nough for her, she wanted to take control of her future.

And Tarot enables her to do just that!

SO instead of asking "what will this week be like" I switched to "what can I do to make this week a good one". I feel quite comfortable with this.

This is routinely the way I work. Tarot is about identifying your opportunities and your risks, and deciding on a course of action to get the best out of life.

 

[PAMUYA]

What about "What should I be looking for this week" it is open for anything, and giving us a heads up

 

[Water Lady]

yes, it is all about asking the right question.

 

[Lorraine1100]

I have found to my own personal cost that it's not what you want to ask or know it is more what the cards want to tell you.

These past three years have revealed some surprising quirks for me. Situations that I did not know about came to fruition in the cards. My ex's cheating and duplicity being one of many. My cards have both helped and protected me by giving me the heads up and telling me what is going on. They have also given me hope and faith through some incredibly dark hours.

They predicted my house move in November last year (even though I had not yet put the house on the market for sale) and by the Spring of this year I was gone, house sold and away.

For sure if I ask a question my cards will give me an answer but when they really want me to know to something they send up a big red flag and they will keep on repeating it over and over until I get it. They tell me, they speak to me and say look this is what you need to know! I used to get mad with the cards when it did this, now I am more, sort of open to it. Not embracing of it, but kind of seeing it as a protection from both my cards and spirit that forewarned is forearmed.

One of the most memorable was the three of swords and the Justice card, it spelled the end of my relationship in 2012. It kept coming up over and over. I got really frustrated, but when the proverbial hit the fan some four months later I could see the tarot was giving me the warning months before. I keep a journal/log book of my questions and the answers I get. Only yesterday I was sat in the garden going through that book and ticking things off. It was all very clear and obvious, the question became a secondary issues, it was the reply in the tarot that became the driving force.

They say that if you know what is coming around the corner you will never face it. Well, I have seen it and I have also been able to put into place plans to mitigate situations and it has given massive benefits because of it.

So, in short you can ask the question, but you might get a different answer and in all probability get a heads up on something that you are blind to for the present.

 

[jenessa]

I have found that it's not what you want to ask or know it is more what the cards want to tell you.

For sure if I ask a question my cards will give me an answer but when they really want me to know to something they send up a big red flag and they will keep on repeating it over and over until I get it.

I keep a journal/log book of my questions and the answers I get. Only yesterday I sat in the garden going through that book and ticking things off. It was all very clear and obvious, the question became a secondary issue, it was the reply in the tarot that became the driving force.

This has been my experience too, so my reading style is to look for the "message" the tarot has for me. & That being the case, my approach is to simply let the cards tell me what I (or someone else) need(s) to know, as opposed to asking questions.

Or rather should I say, I generally BEGIN by letting the cards show me whats up, and then I might delve deeper by doing another reading in order to explore some aspect further. So sometimes I will follow-up by asking a specific question about something that presented itself in the original throw. Or I may do a series of readings (asking various questions), based on the message the tarot revealed to me.

So all in all, my go-to question is: what do I need to know? Then I might follow this up by asking more specifically "about" something the tarot brought to my attention.

& As far as reading the cards drawn, I generally throw from 3-5, and then look to see what issue or situation the cards are depicting & where it's coming from, in the sense that i'm trying to gage why it's happening (or likely to happen), or why it's of importance.

& I also consider ALL the cards thrown in terms of advice. & By viewing the cards this way, they will either shed light on how to best handle the situation the cards are depicting, or the ADVICE in the cards is the message the tarot has for you. & When this later occurs, you will generally know "what" the advice pertains to.

& I also look at ALL the cards in terms of a "chain reaction", in the sense that I also check to see if they could be telling me where things are headed? Not to mention, that it's helpful to view them in terms of possible cause & effect.

So all in all, I prefer "open readings" where the tarot dictates the content. & I've found the secret to success is to wrap my head around the message that is being revealed. So i tend to view the ? as of little importance, when reading this way.

Tho having said that, a well worded question is necessary when your reading about something specific by using a spread with positional meanings. Not to mention, but its also important to use the right spread, and otherwise match the spread to your question, by choosing one that has positional meanings that can be used to answer your question.

 

[Tiggy-cat]

Hmm, I'm the opposite, maybe because I'm still fairly new at it, but I find that if I frame the question very clearly, it helps me to understand the answer more clearly.

And sometimes I ask things to understand situations better, or to get a hint of what's to come, and sometimes I ask advice, like "what do I need to do to achieve _____?"

 

[tarotlova]

Questions!

Lorraine100, this has very much happened to me, the best one that comes to mind for me is something that I really had no intention what so ever of happening to me again. I had just got out of an abusive marriage and was fairly early into my Tarot & Lenormand back then, I was working through the book Mary K Greer the Tarot said I would marry again and quiet quickly, yeah right I thought 20 years was long enough! The Lenormand went further and said it would be a physically well built man body builder type from overseas, bare in mind I lived in a small country town at that time where everyone knew everyone. Well I laughed then, but to cut a long story short my youngest daughter made friends with a girl across the road from us, I finally split from my ex, my daughters friends parents split up, my daughter wanted to play at her house so I approached her dad at the local mall to ask for his address, when I dropped my daughter off for her play date he asked me if I would like a coffee, I thought why not, six weeks later we were married, he is a big boy and comes from New Zealand we are coming up to our 11th wedding anniversary. So yes I listen to the cards, but I also ask questions when I shuffle and lay them out, sometimes I ask what do I need to know. But this has to be the best time I was ever proved wrong and so happily!

 

[MissNine]

Small room. Dimmed lights. AC blasting. I place the cards down on one side of the table on my reading cloth. I sit across from the deck, staring intently at the cards as I sit down, to be able to spot any movements, just in case they make any attempt to run. And then I start with the questioning...

Ok, not really.
The truth: Before I start reading, I find it very important to make sure my crystals are out and I'm in a reading positive kind of mood. As long as I'm not asking questions evoking a "yes/no"answer, my cards come through!

 

[Farzon]

@Lorraine1100:
Interesting experience. But does this narrow your possibilities to open readings, without any question?
And isn't this again a more deterministic approach? What do you do of you want a certain situation illuminated?